The Indictment Of Eternal Torment--The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine

E. D. Slough was an evangelist in the church of Christ. This great book is not now in print or on the web. Thesequestions from it are at: http://www.robertwr.com/resurrection.pdfI am in hopes of being able to add more to it soon or to find the book or the web.

THE
INDICTMENT OF ETERNAL
TORMENT
THE SELF-NEGATION OF A
MONSTROUS DOCTRINE
TRIED, JUDGED AND CONDEMND OUT OF ITS
OWN MOUTH BY THE ARGUMENTS AND ADMISSIONS
OF ITS STAUNCHEST ADVOCATED
By E. D. SLOUGH
F. L. Rown, Publisher
Cincinnati
1914
FOREWORD
By William West
E. D. Slough was an evangelist in the church of Christ. This great book is not now in print or on the web. These
questions from it are at: http://www.robertwr.com/resurrection.pdf
I am in hopes of being able to add more to it soon or to find the book or the web.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
From the introduction to “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” E. D.
Slough, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, pages 9-18, 1914, evangelist, church of Christ.
“During the dark ages, when superstition and tyranny reigned over the better judgments of men, dominating every
civil right of liberty, and subduing ever aspiration to advance intellectually, the gospel light was in chaotic blackness,
handicapped by an intolerant mob of ungodly and profane rulers, whose highest ambition was to reduce humanity to a
condition of absolute serfdom and ignorance, that they might eternally fleece them of their gold and their blood, that
they themselves might revel in beastly sensuality and luxury. So that age is a historical reality, the blackest, the most
inhuman, the most vile, and intolerant that ever disgraced the ledger of events. And a memorial to all coming ages of
the fruits of ungodliness.
Under such a series of profligacy, licentiousness, idolatry, ignorance, and superstition, nothing could result but the
very condition that did result. And the very horror of it all, it all occurred under the garb of religion. In that sacred name,
which has been a thousand times desecrated, dungeons have been prepared, fires have been kindled for martyrs, and
every device genius could contrive was made the tool of usurpation and diabolical power to suppress the liberty of
thought, that the mind of men might be effectually bound in the fetters of espionage to serve the god of greed, and the
Lucifer’s called priests and rulers. And even a mind with a tendency to reason for itself was persecuted and intimidated
from every source by the instruments of brute degenerates, and has accomplished just what these men anticipated—A
plane where the few do the thinking for the many.
Eventually, this resulted in a revolution, costing the blood of countless hosts of men and women and children, and
because of the confusion of main, it broke up into numerous factions and parties, each confined and circumscribed by
the same principles which had dominated their rights under the galling yoke that had just thrown off. And with them
also, a departure from set rules and fixed principles, was another denunciation, and so sensitive to those creeds where
those parties that they would shrink back from one of their member who would have the audacity or courage to
question their truths as they would from a leper or an infectious disease. Sheltered thus under religious zeal, the hearts
of men become congealed and settled into a condition of mimics, rejecting all ideas not in harmony with that of their
own teacher.
An inquisition of chains and torches is not less preferable than the perpetual subjection to doctrines, which palsy the
mind; and against which men dare not lift a voice lest they decried as heretics, and a menace to the cause of Christ.
This age of the world, prolific with the religious “isms” of men, eager to separate themselves in the livery of sect, and
follow a favorite crowd under which they were reared, is the true menace to the cause and progress of truth.
Thus far I have spoken in a general way. But there is a particular way to which I wish to call your attention. For so
long as men close their eyes to possible light, they cannot see. Out of this mass of Egyptian darkness light is slowly
evolving. I can see the breaking of the dawn, and the reflected rays of light shooting over the hills! But with this
twentieth century civilization, we (the Church of Christ) dare not say we have reached the summit of knowledge, the
pinnacle of perfection. To do so would be an expression of egotism, for all who have scanned the word of God will be
constrained to say with Paul, “Oh, the depths of the riches both of wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
his judgments and his ways past finding out.”
Men of renown and scholarship have for ages sought for proof on the pages of nature’s book, for the immortality of
the souls of all men. My aim will be to show they have all alike failed. Truth is modest in the presence of great men.
Speculation is the field of their exploration. No wonder these profound thinks are baffled to astonishment as they
wrestle with the deep things of God, building as they do great structures upon the passing phantoms of the brain. The
popular feeling that somehow by irrevocable fate, or unchangeable law, once in being always in being. The delusion
which tells of in inborn principle in man both immortal in indestructible, that as we depart here instantaneously awake in
a new world with new power and realizations, and upon which fabrication has been built eternal torment, purgatory,
and a host of other doctrines, have been sounded out from out pulpits, periodicals, funeral sermons and fireside talks.
It has permeated every village and hamlet; it is world wide in its scope, and its defense.
We charge our neighbors with crooked reasoning. They can justly retort, thou are the man. For we are no less
bound up with early training than those whom we criticize. We dare not raise the voice against the tenets of faith more
than they, without expecting in return a volley denunciation and contempt. Picturing the future of the unsaved with all
the horror that words can employ, an eternity of woe and misery, and everlasting existence of torture. And the very
illustrations used to prove it are a positive denial of it. And yet I presume not one of them has noticed it, because
they use the same proofs over and over.
Often have my friends exhorted me to be cautious in the agitation of convictions contrary to the established
teaching of the Christ; that it would be in opposition to all the scholarship of the world. That I would be practically alone,
and bring the scorn of the religious world upon me. Yet those same friends would give a world painting of eternal
torment that would make Hopkins turn over in his grave and give a sigh of relief. Henceforth let the logically remove the
serious objections against their peculiar tent, with the word of God, rather than by scholastic writers. Thought it be an
error, they would not call a long nurtured theory in question in fear of combating scholarship. Verily, scholarship will not
tear down its own building. Shall we muzzle out inherited right of free thinking and free speaking and bow to the
mandates of theological speculations? Shall we decide that investigation of disputed points of the Bible ought to be
suppressed to honor the scholarship back of them? There is no delusion in the name of religion preached among men
that has no scholarship back of it. Then why oppose error at all? Though I should get no hearing, I prefer to be alone in
the truth, than with the multitude in error. But I am not along. Thousands are in sympathy with these arguments, many
of them representing the highest channels of learning. But, on the other hand, thousand of great learned men have
lived in error all their lives, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. While many of the weak and lowly
have found the truth and laid hold of it. If all ages of the world many thing have been withheld from the wise and
prudent, and revealed unto babes. Learning too often leads to speculation, rather than an earnest search for the
truth”…The Bible cannot agree with “Tom and Dick” if “Tom and Dick” do not agree with one another. But “Tom and
Dick’s” faith should not have any intrinsic weight on the subject. We protest against their policies. They have confused
the public mind by grinding out of their theological burrs, new meanings into common words. They have
thrown false colors over the scriptures. They have inherited in a large measure their faith, and in this way religious
heredity has muzzled the powers of their reason. So why let Tom and Dick forever close our eyes and seal our
mouths, dictating to us a religious teaching? On its very face it is an obvious farce and an extravagant
burlesque on the great architect of the universe.
The issue before us in this work is that unfounded theory of “natural immortality, or the deathless nature of the soul,”
which if ever established must include the dog and the bear. Let that dogma be confirmed and the whole structure of
eternal torment must stand forever unscathed. Fundamental to the entire doctrine is this theory. If it stand, the
conclusion is inevitable. If it falls, the whole fabric built upon it crushes into atoms.
…Some one may ask what does it matter if we do believe it? It matters much. Let me point you to some of its
mischief. What caused Universalism to rise up and deny the future retribution? That very doctrine of natural
immortality. How did it cause it? This way—they believed the spirit of man indestructible. They saw a furnace of fire in
scripture opening its jaws to receive countless hosts. They know the fire could only torture such a spirit. They saw no
release from it: they saw in the distant eternity the writhing millions of humanity no nearer the end of their suffering than
when they entered. They thought “horror!” Such would make God a tyrant, more terrible than a thousand inquisitions
of the dark ages. They cried “absurdity.” They cried right, too. So they devised a crude escape. They figured it all away,
and agreed to take all men into heaven irrespective of moral qualification. All punishment became to them reformative,
and, ultimately, the last man would depart for glory.
From whence came the soul-benumbing ingredients of Calvin’s Eternal Election of much of the human race to
everlasting misery in a lake of fire, regardless of moral attire, choice or conduct” Came it not from the gangrenes of
putrescent mental sore? Came it not from a scattering mind, incapacitated to gather, associate and concentrate
evidence? With him, the deathless nature of the soul was a profound reality—it was unquestionable—to doubt was to
exhibit weakness. He saw God revealed in scripture with powers sweeping all infinity. He saw some intimations of an
election, a pre-election, a foreknowledge, and following this lead he unconsciously forced to the grossest absurdity the
mind of man can entertain. Lay your premises in error, and draw your conclusions in harmony, and you have a
falsehood masquerading in your brain in the guise of the angel of truth.
What caused induced the rise of “spiritualism?” That dark, deceitful pretense of talking with the dead. Any one
may talk to the dead, but the dead answers not. These people also were repulsed by the doctrine of endless misery,
and immediately rejected the Bible, but held tenaciously to the eternal perpetuity of the spirit of man, and invented a
diabolical fare for its chart of unseen activity. Notwithstanding the Divine denunciations against it as the work of devilish
agencies.
Upon what is “Purgatory” and Saint Worship” founded? Are not its entire fortifications resting upon that one delicate
thread? These delusive and pernicious evils of Catholicism, destined to drag man and women, boys and girls down to
an irredeemable fate, under the “spell” that a failure here means but a little longer term of purification in the fires of
Purgatory.
Again, from that theory, legions of infidels and atheist have been created: besides, thousands more have wandered
off into every form and bypath of delusion. Denying the conclusions and consequences to which the theory leads, man
have given wings to scores of false notions withdrawing from it entirely, or making some sour of apology for God as did
Thompson in the “Theism,” “that it belongs to the necessities of existence and cannot therefore be otherwise.”
E. D. Slough, evangelist, church of Christ: “The word ‘punishment’ is not a puzzling word. One of
the most familiar terms in the English language. Do you know its meaning? Just think a moment
and try to define it. The dictionary tells us it is the infliction of penalty for an offence. Is it? If the
teacher tells the pupil she will ‘punish’ him a question would spring up in his mind, what way?
Even the child knows there are many ways to punish. Though our theologians, after losing
sight of the definition of the word, at last give it but one idea, that of misery. Cunning
enough, indeed, to separate it from its primary meaning in the New Testament. As if death inflicted
for sin was not a punishment. If it is a recompense of the some nature, what is the nature, how
severe? The term punishment as a retaliation for offence, never defines the nature of the
infliction to be executes. It only announces the fact that a judicial penalty is due, without
revealing the severity of it. Punishment, retaliation, recompense, penalty, are synonymous words,
and may be used interchangeably. So if the Lord had said, ‘These shall go into everlasting
recompense’ or penalty, or retaliation, we would still be forced to seek other scriptures to learn
what kind of recompense is meant. We are told there can be no punishment without pain. I deny
the assertion. I challenge the reader to search the Old Testament for the hundreds of instances
where the infliction of death was the penalty for crimes. And that it was inflicted to satisfy the
offence regardless of the pain accompanying it. Punishment lasts so long as its results last, and
where death has been administered for the satisfaction of crime, the punishment continues till
life is restored, and if never restored, it is an everlasting punishment. Lost of property, loss of
liberty, loss of life, may all be meted out to the transgressors under the label of punishment. And
death as the capital punishment, legalized on the statutes of all civilized nations of the world, is the
highest punishment man can inflict—or so recognized,—being the deprivation of life, the first
source of all pleasures and enjoyments, and recognized as being forfeited for certain crimes.” “The
Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” page 196-197, F. L.
Rowe, Publisher, 1914.
E. D. Slough: “When the Lord talked with men, and used human language, if he placed other meanings on
the words than those understood by men, how could God teach us? Or if he used them in a figurative
sense, in their last and most important application, why were we not apprised of the change...if the Bible
doesn’t mean what it says, then nobody knows what it does mean.” page 195-206, “If the people would
allow the words in the Bible to teach them the same thought they get from the Dictionary, and from common
use—allow God to mean the same thing when talking to us that we mean when talking to one
another—these disputes would quickly adjust themselves. The condition of unrest everywhere on these
issues of the Bible is ample argument that something is needed as a standard which makes words mean the
same whether in or out of the Bible.” page 42, “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A
Monstrous Doctrine,” F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914, evangelist, church of Christ.
E. D. Slough, evangelist, church of Christ: “While these patriarchs and prophets were talking so much about
the ‘dead body’ having no wisdom, no thoughts, no praises, no knowledge and no intelligence of any sort,
why did they not draw on the spirit a little for our special edification, and teach us that there is wisdom and
knowledge and thoughts and praises where it goes? Why not? Why talk so much and so dramatically about
the dead body, and tell us that which all know, and say not one encouraging word about the joys and
praises the spirits are giving God in the unseen world? Is there nothing significant about that omission? Why
did they not cheer up our earth life, by painting a picture of the hosts of happy spirits in the unseen world of
the dead? That would have been real instruction. That would have been, indeed, information, and would
have settled a long drawn argument. Do you want the real reason for this action on the part of inspired
men? Here it is. Obviously, they were speaking of the whole creature man. They saw no spirit off yonder
praising God as Milligan, McGarvery, and others. They saw death the end of man, and they pointed it out as
such, including his thoughts perishing in death, which means the dissolution of all his faculties. They did not
talk of the thoughts being transferred, but perishing. The only possible result of death, destroying the
organism by which thought is possible. Never a time did they say, ‘There is wisdom and knowledge with the
spirits of the dead.’ How easy it would have been to say it. But had they said it, they could not have said the
other. There are two propositions—one or the other must be untrue. Look at the incongruity of reasoning
standing out like a hug knot on a limb. Some one says, ‘John Doe is dead.’ And that there is no
remembrances or praise where he went. He knows not anything. But immediately they tell us ‘the real John
Doe is the spirit’ and that it knows better than before. The man of God said, ‘whither thou go’ there is no
wisdom, etc. ‘Thou’ John Doe. Men say ‘Thou’ means the spirit, and that it never ceases to think. Our clergy
and the wise men are at variance again. What shall we do? We will leave them that way—if they can’t see
the truth.
Thus, John Doe is dead, and he is not dead.
His thoughts perish, and they do not perish.
He praised God, and he does not praise Him.
He remembers, and he does not remember.
All at the same time—the same John Doe…They can not even suggest a reason why those ancient
mouth pieces of God should argue and repeat and emphasize and affirm and declare over and over that the
‘dead body’ knows nothing, remembers nothing, praised nothing, thinks nothing and does nothing, which is
only a deep and solemn fact known by all the living, and never open their mouths once about the spirit
being able to do all these things. It would have been in perfect accord with their enthusiasm along this
line to have said, ‘Cheer up and rejoice, for though the dead body has no knowledge, no wisdom, no
thoughts, etc., yet the spirit is rejoicing and happy, thinking and praising God.’ What a relief that would have
been to modern theology. But the fact that such was not the case, is proof that it is not true.” pages 191-194,
"Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation of a Monstrous Doctrine," F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914.
E. D. Slough, evangelist, church of Christ: “We want to know if this was a real experience, and if it teaches
the condition of the dead. Let it be remembered, then, according to the philosophy that they are ‘spirits.’ Will
you tell me how you reason that a ‘spirit’s tongue’ can be cooled with water? ‘Oh’ you say, ‘that
represents’—hold on, no representations go in a real circumstance. If you say it is real, stay with it. This
policy of making it half literal and half figurative, just because there is an end to gain, is a nature ‘fakir’ in
theology. It, therefore, represents nothing if it is a real circumstance, as you affirm. How could Lazarus carry
a drop of water on his ‘spiritual’ finger? You say, ‘Oh, that doesn’t mean literal water.’ Well sir, it does or
you do not mean what you say, I care not who you are. But reason with me. How could a spiritual tongue be
cooled with a drop of water? ‘Oh,’ you say, ‘that must not be pressed too literal,’ no, not too literal, but just
a literal as in any real circumstance. If it was a literal fact, then the details, which make it up are
literal fact also. And to deny that it to deny your position. Here is a stubborn fact. The narrative say the
rich man did call on Abraham to send Lazarus. That he wanted Lazarus to dip his finger in water. And he
wanted Lazarus to put that water on his tongue. And the reason was that he was tormented in the flame.
That very portrait, if it be a real circumstance, will compel every one of you to admit that the torment of the
intermediate state is produced by fire. How do you like it? Then stop saying it is a sort of compunction of
conscience. For understand, conscience was never known to call for water to cool it. Get that? It will no
doubt be granted willingly, that for a real circumstance, the peculiar incidents connected with it here make
this the most remarkable and phenomenal case on record. For we would be forced to concede that the spirit
craved water, that it gets thirsty or feverish, and that it asked a favor of Abraham instead of God, that it was
God who rendered the verdict and cast him in prison, that Abraham has no right or jurisdiction in the matter,
and a hundred other things that make this narrative an absolute mystery, if it be a real circumstance.” “The
Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” page 262, F. L. Rowe,
Publisher, 1914.
E. D. Slough, evangelist, church of Christ: “Useless, perhaps, to point to Johnson…and hundreds of other
learned men who select this parable to prove an immediate entrance at death into joy or sorrow. Never
seemingly able to discover the impossibility of making it accommodate itself to such requirement. No
wonder they become utterly nonplussed when the discrepancies involved in such a course are brought
squarely to their attention through other scriptures. This fact has been tested time and time again with the
same result—that of quibble and evasion pure and simple” “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-
negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” page 254, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914.
J. W. McGarvery and E. D. Slough: “’It has been very vehemently argued and insisted upon, that such
punishment for sin would be unjust on the part of God, because the penalty would be far beyond the
demerits of the sin for which it was inflicted. To inflict punishment such as is described in the Bible upon a
human being, and that continuing without end, for the sins which he committed during the brief stay which
he experienced here on earth, is out of all proportion, when viewed as a matter of justice. Justice demands
that the penalty shall be proportioned to the crime. Well it does look that way; it undoubtedly does. No father
would inflict that kind of punishment upon his son for any conceivable offense against the father, it is
argued, and I believe that is true. I would hate to see the man that would. He would not be my friend. It
would show not only a want of justice, but an audacious rebellion against all sense of the goodness and
mercy and love, of which we have already spoken. But now then, whilst it does appear that way; and if I
were the Judge I would not give that sentence; if I had the trial of the matter, I am sure that I would not allow
that sentence to be passed’ McGarvey’s Sermons, page 31. I would like to fill two chapters on that extract
from McGarvey’s sermons. Here is material for a whole volume. Never was a more formidable argument
uttered against the theory we are opposing than this pathetic confession. I wish I had space to demonstrate
that God is as good as McGarvey tried to believe him to be. I would that I could cause you to see that
McGarvey felt his whole nature revolting against the notion he was defending…McGarvey has used his
powers of reason, and his mature judgment, upon this theory of retribution, and he found it repulsive to his
soul. That it was, to his judgment, out of all proportion when viewed as a matter of justice. Watts was not
infallible, but if that principle he introduced is correct, ‘that God himself has never given revelation contrary
to our sense of right or reason,’ then here is one of the ablest defenders of that system who has entered the
pulpit in a century, with his fingers emphasizing with emotional gestures to a great audience, in Louisville,
Ky., that it is out of all proportion when viewed as a matter justice—and if any one else but God, he would
hate to see him, etc. That it would be a rebellion against all we know of the word justice. This coming from
so great a scholar as McGarvery makes it the most pathetic and serious. And it makes it more obviously
false when presented with a touch of the poet’s brush. McGarvery offers an apology for it. How? ‘Well, who
am I? I am a sinner.’ And therefore the sinner has never learned what justice is, and cannot judge between
what would be right and what would be grossly unjust. No. But here, God has not left us in the dark as to the
meaning justice, when He has taught it with untiring patience to His weak creatures, and now He asks us to
judge if He has not dealt justly with us. McGarvey counted himself no greater sinner than other Christians.
The Church of God is supposed to be a holy temple, a righteous people, loving justice and mercy—A fit
habitation of God through the spirit, filled with God’s thoughts, full of knowledge of God, to which McGarvey
has attained a reasonably high degree. And it is to such men as he, as well as all degrees below him, that
this punishment, such as he believe the Bible to teach, if executed by a father against a son for any
conceivable offence, would be an audacious rebellion against the goodness and mercy of love, And it is to
such men, who are capable of sound judgment, that God challenges to show where He is unjust and to use
their own power to test Him. Then there must be something out of joint with the theory, charging God with
such principles of conduct toward His own creatures, utterly repugnant and audacious to the intelligence of
man, when viewed as matters of justice. Surely, that which rebels against the common sense of man could
not become a virtue in Heaven. For however frail we may be, there is an inhered sense of right in us,
cultivated by our education and associations. And between that sense of right and the idea of endless
misery the chasm is so vast and unfathomable that even the mind of McGarvey saw it as span less as
eternity. And his judgment crumpled up into that of a defenseless child, saying I don’t know how it can be.”
E. D. Slough, "Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation of a Monstrous Doctrine," pages 218-200,
1914, church of Christ.
E. D. SLOUGH: “Punishment lasts so long as its results last, and where death has been administered for
the satisfaction of crime, the punishment continues till life is restored, and if never restored, it is an
everlasting punishment. Lost of property, loss of liberty, loss of life, may all be meted out to the
transgressors under the label of punishment. And death as the capital punishment, legalized on the statutes
of all civilized nations of the world, is the highest punishment man can inflict—or so recognized,–being the
deprivation of life, the first source of all pleasures and enjoyments, and recognized as being forfeited for
certain crimes.” “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” page
196-197, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914, (evangelist, church of Christ).
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From
http://www.robertwr.com/resurrection.pdf
CHAPTER TEN
The Results Of Attributing Evil Pagan Teachings
To God By Religious People
This God slandering Dark Age doctrine of Hell makes God evil, cruel, sadistic,
and fiendish. By some unknown and twisted reasoning it is assumed that for God to
be just He must forever torment the lost for His justice demands this; how does
“God is a just God” demand that there is a Hell, or prove there is a Hell? From the
first sin, God's sentence to Adam was not eternal torment but death. Throughout
the Bible the sentence for sin is always death, not torment. "The wages of sin is
death." That His justice demands that He must forever torment the lost is without
any foundation in His word. To put it pure and simple, it is a doctrine of man and it
makes God evil, cruel, and fiendish for if the punishment exceeds the crime by
millions of times, it is injustice, not justice.
If a man should put a single person that had raped and killed his wife in a dark pit and
torment him day and night for ten years, most would condemn him to the hottest part of
"Hell." Yet, some teach that God made mankind knowing that most of them would be
lost, and many millions would never hear His word; yet He know before He made them
that He was going to torment them worse than anything we can imagine, not for ten
years, but time without end. It will be God doing the tormenting; God will be the one
who makes the fire and keeps it burning forever. Satan or the evil ones will not be
tormenting themselves. Many try to justify God for doing more than any man can do, and
being more cruel and sadistic than the most evil man could ever be by saying we cannot
understand the evil of sin. The God of the Bible is a God of love and justice, not as many
make Him, sadistic, fiendish, cruel, evil, and in character much like Satan. It is a certainty
(1) that in the Hell that is preached today no one will be corrected by the torment, (2) that
no one in Hell will ever be corrected by Hell; therefore, it can only be sadistic and there
is no way that endless sadistic torment of most of mankind by God would not make Him
sadistic; much of today’s preaching makes God both evil and sadistic.
The Ultimate Evil: “The idea of never-ending conscious agony is so completely revolting to our
instinctive moral and judicial senses that we could fittingly call it the ultimate evil. If we’re honest
about the matter, this is exactly what it is. After all, is it possible to come up with a worse notion
than perpetual fiery conscious misery – with no merciful respite or end to the suffering? The mere
idea is so disturbing that it makes it a very hard subject to discuss calmly. How can anyone with an
ounce of human compassion contemplate the idea dispassionately when the view of ceaseless
torture is so profoundly disturbing?” From chapter eight of: www.hell-know.net/
The Deprived, Revolting Evil: "To torment a child that dies without ever knowing anything
about God or His word forever day and night with a torment worse than any pain we can have on
this earth would not be 'justice,' but sadistic. What kind of a person could love a God who was
tormenting his wife and children with more pain than anyone has ever had in this life? When we are
in Heaven, do you think we will be singing of God's love and mercy while He is cruelly tormenting
most of mankind and many you now love, your wife or husband, your father and mother, your child,
your friend? Is there a greater perversion of Scripture than to attribute such characteristics to God?
Is it reasonable to believe that the righteous in their glorified state can be indifferent to, and
unaffected by, the endless sufferings of countless millions of their fellow beings, among who would
probably be found parents, children, husbands, wives, etc.? Is it possible that they will be destitute
of deprived of qualities which are considered most lovely and godlike in this life; viz., piety,
sympathy, compassion, commiseration for others' woes, etc.? Will insensibility to the woes of the
wretched ever become a virtue? Will that which is a vice in this life, become a grace in the glorious
future life?" From a web page by "Ron" which is no longer on the net.
Today, many think that the electric chair or hanging of a person who has killed many
is inhumane though it takes only a few seconds; but these same people see no
inconsistency in believing it is just for God to torment the same person, even if that
person has never heard His word, with a torment which they say is much worse than the
few seconds would be, and this torment by God will not last only for a few seconds, but
for an endless eternity.
More Cruel And Sadistic Than Any Heathen God: The Calvin God that is
believed in and worshiped by many is a God many times more evil, more cruel, and
sadistic than any heathen god. Before the Calvin god made the world, he rigged the
outcome and chose to make most of mankind to be lost before he made them. According
to Calvin his god even made it impossible for most to believe, but will torment them
forever for not believing. The torment by the worshipers of heathen gods soon ended with
death of the ones being tormented; but Calvinism teaches their god made most men,
many millions, just so he could torment them without end for eternity "for his good
pleasure." According to Hell fire Calvin teachers, this torment will be many times worse
than any torment by the worshipers of heathen gods; and will never end in the death of
those being tormented. How could any person who has an ounce of compassion love and
worship such a god?
Those who believe in the Calvin god say this god chose you to be saved, or to be lost
before he made the world. If you are one of the few chosen by this evil god to be saved,
even if you live in the most out of the way place in the world and never know of God or
Christ, when the time comes for you to be saved you will be. You can do nothing about
it, and you cannot say no. If you are one of the many he chose before you were born to
torment forever, there is no use to send preachers to you; there is no use for you to read
the Bible or do anything; there is nothing you or anyone can do. According to Calvin this
god made you just because he wants to torment you forever, and he will. Such a god is
like a very rich ruler who torments a thousand people "for his good pleasure" and
enjoyment, and chose you to make rich and happy. He would not be worthily of your
love, but only your contempt. To destroy those who chose to be evil one thing; but to
make them be evil before they were born, and then torment them without end with more
pain than they can know in this lifetime for being what he made them to be is not justice.
He would be an unjust and evil god. He made them evil and gave them no chance not to
be, and then torments them for being what He made them to be. If you put a person who
worked in a store in the electric chair for unknowingly short changing a person one cent,
your injustice would not equal that of a god that made one person just so he could
torment that person for endless ages. Many say he did this with most of mankind. Most
are filled with grief when a loved one or friend has some sickness that makes them suffer,
even when they know the suffering will soon end with death. Yet, they worship a god
who they believe will take pleasure in the suffering of billions without end; and not only
will he take pleasure in it, he will be the one that is tormenting them and making them
suffer, and he made them just so he could torment and make them suffer. Calvin did not
get his doctrine from the heathens for the heathens had no doctrine as cruel, as
fiendish, as black, or as unjust.
A Scandal Against The Almighty: "For were a woman to commit a crime against her husband,
and he punishes her by holding her hand in the fire until the flesh burned off the bones, he would
be pronounced one of the most cruel beings in the world; and if he were to escape justice, he
would be hunted as a wild beast; and when brought to trial and condemned, he would be
pronounced worthy of thrice the punishment that the law could inflict. And he would have been tried
and condemned by men, most of whom, perhaps, believed that God would take that same woman,
for that same crime that she had committed against her husband, and put-not only her hand, but
her whole self into a Lake of Fire and Brimstone; -not for half an hour-not for a day-not for a year-
nor for ten thousand years only, but for all Eternity. Also, that this Burning of her in a Blazing Hell
would be so agreeable to the determination of the Almighty that no pity could be excited, no mercy
shown; but that there, in that Lake of Fire she should gnash, and groan, and wail Eternally. Oh!
How horrid the picture! And what a terrible crime, even in the light of their own actions, to charge
God with such cruelty!" John Kent, "Eternal Burning, A Scandal Against The Almighty," 1879.
A God Of Infinite Horror: "That God would rise the wicked and give them immortality only to
torment them in a devil's hell unendingly is both gross and vulgar, even blasphemous. Such a God
is not the one described in the Bible...If the God of heaven subjects innumerable billions to
unending and indescribable torment, it can only be seen as the one infinite horror." Leroy Garrett,
Restoration Review, November 1990.
A Mockery Of Truth And A Blasphemy Against Deity: "My opponent will make an effort to
try and demonstrate that our loving, compassionate, merciful God will be content with nothing less
than the perpetual, never diminishing, horrific torture of the vast majority of mankind. Not only is
that not what the Scriptures teach, it has the distinct disadvantage of portraying our God as a
Monster the likes of which the human mind cannot even conceive. It is to proclaim a God foreign to
the inspired revelation. Thus, it is a mockery of Truth and a blasphemy against Deity." Al Maxey,
Maxey-Thrasher Debate on the Eternal Destiny of the Wicked by two ministers of the church of
Christ at:
http://www.zianet.com/maxey/MxThrshr.htm - I recommend this debate to all members of the
church of Christ of which he is a member, and to all who want the truth.
Worst Than Gods Of Paganism: "Paganism in its worst forms has never surpassed, if it has
equaled, the savage and terrible descriptions which have been given by Christians of their God.
The character ascribed to Him; the dreadful wrath and vengeance with which He is moved; the cold
and malignant purpose of creation in regard to million of souls; the stern severity and gloom of His
government; the horrible and never-ceasing tortures which He will inflict on His helpless, children-
all this, and much more of like character, defies the power of language to set it forth in its true light,
or to present it in a manner adequate to its shocking revolting reality." Thomas Thayer, "The Origin
And History Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment."
Makes The Universe A Theater Of Cursing And Blasphemy: "What, then, is the doctrine of
endless misery? Stripped of all its drapery, it is no more or less than this: That a large part of the
human family are doomed to suffer the most intense and indescribable torments as long as God
shall exist, without the least hope or possibility of being benefited by their sufferings. In some part
of this beautiful universe, God has prepared an awful, dismal, burning hell, and there countless
myriads of human beings shall weep and groan, unpitied and unrelieved, while ceaseless ages
shall roll; and when ten thousand times ten thousand years shall have passed, they shall have as
long to suffer as if their sufferings had but just began. And, then, to think of the number of the lost
to remember that there are on this earth not less than eight hundred millions of human beings, and
that out of these there are not more than fifty millions that can be saved, upon the broadest system
of partialism; and that, by consequence, there must be more than seventy thousand souls going
down to hell every day; and, then, to think of generations that have past, and reflect upon the vast
and countless multitudes that must be congregated in that huge reservoir of tears and woe; the
very thought bears the lie upon its front. The degree of the punishment outrages all ideas of
proportion between guilt and punishment, and the number of the victims shocks all feelings of
humanity or mercy. It makes the universe a theater of cursing and blasphemy, rather than a field
for the display of the boundless perfections of a merciful and benevolent Creator." I. D. Williamson,
An Examination Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment, 1860.
God The Tormentor: Spurgeon, one of the greatest of Baptist preachers, said, "When thou
driest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body
will join thy soul and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body
suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth, thy body will lie, asbestos like,
forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on
which the devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament." From his sermon
"The Resurrection of the Dead." Like most who believe God will forever torment many billions, he
must have some revelation that is not in the Bible to tell him about their suffering. In his day most
orthodox Protestants believed the Devil would be doing the tormenting, but today most orthodox
Protestants think he was wrong, that God is the one who will be doing the tormenting. The man
made "Hell" is forever changing. What was orthodox in his day is no longer orthodox. For many
Baptists his truth is no longer truth.
Ebenezer Erskine in "The Judgment," "How shall the adulterer satisfy lust when he lies on a bed
of flames? The swearer shall have enough of wounds and blood when the devil shall torture his
body and rack his soul in hell. The drunkard shall have plenty of his cups when scalding lead shall
be poured down his throat, and his breath draw flames of fire instead of air."
An Atrocious Slander On God: Henry Ward Beeches speaking of Michael Angelo's painting,
The Last Judgment said, "Let anyone see the enormous gigantic coils of fiends and man; let
anyone look at the defiant Christ that stands like a superb athlete at the front, hurling his enemies
from him and calling his friends toward him as Hercules might have done; let anyone look upon
that hideous wriggling mass that goes plunging down through the air-serpents and man and beasts
of every nauseous kind, mixed together; let him look at the lower parts of the picture, where with
the pitchforks men are by devils being cast into cauldrons and into burning fires, where hateful
fiends are gnawing the skulls of suffering sinners, and where there is hellish cannibalism going on-
let a man look at that picture and scenes which it depicts, and he sees what were the ideas which
man once had of Hell and of divine justice. It was a night-mare as hideous as was ever begotten by
the hellish brood it-self; and it was an atrocious slander on God...I do not wonder that men have
reacted from these horrors."
Jonathan Edwards: "The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire,
in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be
tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over
their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their
eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall forever be full of a
flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and, also, they shall
eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for
one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, not for ten thousand millions of
ages, one after another, but for forever and ever, without an end at all, and never to be delivered."
Benson: "He will exert all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of their
nature will admit...They must be perpetually swelling their enormous sums of guilt, and still running
deeper, immensely deeper, in debt to divine and infinite justice. Hence after the longest imaginable
period, they will be so far from having discharged their debt that they will find more due than when
they first began to suffer." He has God charging interest on the debt of the suffering sinner owes
Him at such a high rate that the sinner gets more behind as time goes on. If the punishment
exceeds the crime by billions of times would it be justice or injustice?
Dr. E. Beech: "Involves God, his whole administration, and his eternal kingdom in the deepest
dishonor that the mind of man or angel can conceive, by the violation of the highest and most
sacred principles of honor and right, and on the scale of infinity and eternity" page 225. "The
human mind cannot be held back from abhorring such a theory, except by the most unnatural
violence to its divinely inspired convictions of honor and right" page 306, Conflict of the Ages.
Troy B. Channing: “The devil must make hell look like a VERY torturous place so that our view
of God is altered into a view that is NOT merciful”
What kind of justice is this? To fill many books with the most harrowing
descriptions of torment would not equal the torment we are told that God will give to just
one person for all eternity. After someone who never knows of God in his lifetime on
earth has been in torment in Hell for not believing in God for trillions times trillions of
years, we are told they will still have eternity with not one second less time to suffer.
Those who believe in Hell say, "It is justice." My question to them is how do they know
it to be justice, where did God tell this to them? It being justice is something they had to
make up to try to justify the heathen Hell, even when it make God be much more evil
than Satan. They are saying, “Stepping on a person’s lawn may get you a disapproving
look, but stepping on God’s lawn will get you eternal torment by God.” No one could
know this without a revelation from God, and there is no such revelation, it is an addition,
it is making God evil just to justify their evil teaching.
Do you wonder where in the Bible they found things like the devil pouring
scalding lead down the throat of a person, and many thousands of like things? The
answer is that they are in the same passage where they found Hell, and the same
passage where they found the name of Hell. They found them in the teaching of
men, not the Bible.
J. W. McGarvery and E. D. Slough: “’It has been very vehemently argued and insisted upon,
that such punishment for sin would be unjust on the part of God, because the penalty would be far
beyond the demerits of the sin for which it was inflicted. To inflict punishment such as is described
in the Bible upon a human being, and that continuing without end, for the sins which he committed
during the brief stay which he experienced here on earth, is out of all proportion, when viewed as a
matter of justice. Justice demands that the penalty shall be proportioned to the crime. Well it does
look that way; it undoubtedly does. No father would inflict that kind of punishment upon his son for
any conceivable offense against the father, it is argued, and I believe that is true. I would hate to
see the man that would. He would not be my friend. It would show not only a want of justice, but an
audacious rebellion against all sense of the goodness and mercy and love, of which we have
already spoken. But now then, whilst it does appear that way; and if I were the Judge I would not
give that sentence; if I had the trial of the matter, I am sure that I would not allow that sentence to
be passed’ McGarvey’s Sermons, page 31. I would like to fill two chapters on that extract from
McGarvey’s sermons. Here is material for a whole volume. Never was a more formidable argument
uttered against the theory we are opposing than this pathetic confession. I wish I had space to
demonstrate that God is as good as McGarvey tried to believe him to be. I would that I could cause
you to see that McGarvey felt his whole nature revolting against the notion he was
defending…McGarvey has used his powers of reason, and his mature judgment, upon this theory
of retribution, and he found it repulsive to his soul. That it was, to his judgment, out of all proportion
when viewed as a matter of justice. Watts was not infallible, but if that principle he introduced is
correct, ‘that God himself has never given revelation contrary to our sense of right or reason,’ then
here is one of the ablest defenders of that system who has entered the pulpit in a century, with his
fingers emphasizing with emotional gestures to a great audience, in Louisville, Ky., that it is out of
all proportion when viewed as a matter justice—and if any one else but God, he would hate to see
him, etc. That it would be a rebellion against all we know of the word justice. This coming from so
great a scholar as McGarvery makes it the most pathetic and serious. And it makes it more
obviously false when presented with a touch of the poet’s brush. McGarvery offers an apology for
it. How? ‘Well, who am I? I am a sinner.’ And therefore the sinner has never learned what justice is,
and cannot judge between what would be right and what would be grossly unjust. No. But here,
God has not left us in the dark as to the meaning justice, when He has taught it with untiring
patience to His weak creatures, and now He asks us to judge if He has not dealt justly with us.
McGarvey counted himself no greater sinner than other Christians. The Church of God is supposed
to be a holy temple, a righteous people, loving justice and mercy—A fit habitation of God through
the spirit, filled with God’s thoughts, full of knowledge of God, to which McGarvey has attained a
reasonably high degree. And it is to such men as he, as well as all degrees below him, that this
punishment, such as he believe the Bible to teach, if executed by a father against a son for any
conceivable offence, would be an audacious rebellion against the goodness and mercy of love,
And it is to such men, who are capable of sound judgment, that God challenges to show where He
is unjust and to use their own power to test Him. Then there must be something out of joint with the
theory, charging God with such principles of conduct toward His own creatures, utterly repugnant
and audacious to the intelligence of man, when viewed as matters of justice. Surely, that which
rebels against the common sense of man could not become a virtue in Heaven. For however frail
we may be, there is an inhered sense of right in us, cultivated by our education and associations.
And between that sense of right and the idea of endless misery the chasm is so vast and
unfathomable that even the mind of McGarvey saw it as span less as eternity. And his judgment
crumpled up into that of a defenseless child, saying I don’t know how it can be.” E. D. Slough,
"Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation of a Monstrous Doctrine," pages 218-200,
1914, church of Christ.
E. Petavel, D. D.: "The lamentable results of the Platonic doctrine may be seen in the theology
of a Tertullian and an Augustine, –theology called orthodox, –which makes the God of love an
Executioner whom innumerable victims will curse eternally. Such a doctrine is a burden even to its
adherents. It has drawn from them admissions, which we are bound to record. Henry Rogers
declared that 'for his part he would not be sorry to see every child die at the age of four years.'
Albert Barnes admits, with a soul full of anguish that he cannot understand why there are men
destined to suffer forever. 'The Gospel,' says Isaac Taylor, 'fills us with a universal sympathy which
sometimes make us regret that it must be true in all its teaching.' Calvin himself cannot refrain from
confessing that the decree of God concerning sinners seems to him horrible…In a word, the
traditional dogma conducts to pessimism by making evil eternal. What has been the result?
Extremes meeting, the doctrine of eternal suffering has led to Universalism. More or less
secretly many of the partisans of the traditional dogma, unable to hold it any longer, have quitted
their position, to embrace the hope of a universal salvation; while others wander in the penumbra
of eschatological skepticism" The Extinction Of Evil, page 78, 1889.
THE CAUSE OF ATHEISM AND STUMBLING IN MANY Matthew 18:6
A DOCTRINE THAT MAKES ATHEISTS
God has been made so cruel, and this doctrine is so unthinkable that it has
probably created more atheists, and caused more weak believers to fall away than
any other false teaching. The dread of Hell has caused misery and metal anguish to
countless millions; instead of the horror of Hell turning many to God to escape
eternal torment, many millions have been turned away from such an unjust God.
The doctrine of Hell is one of Satan's best tools to turn many away from Christ. Do you
want to give an account to God at the judgment for teaching it? No heathen religion has a
god as unjust and fiendish as many "Christians" make their God.
Tim Crosby in “Ministry.” "As a child, Robert Ingersoll heard a preacher proclaim the doctrine
that God subjects sinners to unending torment in hell. Ingersoll decided that if God were like that,
then he hated Him. Later he wrote of this belief that it 'makes man an eternal victim and God an
eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go.'
There are substantial moral and logical difficulties in believing in a God who tortures His
enemies forever. Like Ingersoll, thousands of thinking men have turned away from such a
God."
Edward White: "It cannot be denied that the frightful doctrines on the future of
humanity...supported by the general authority of nearly all Christendom for at least fourteen
centuries, are regarded with contemptuous skepticism by the bulk of the existing male population
of Europe, who assigns these articles of 'the faith' as the chief reason for their ever extending and
fierce revolt against Christianity" Life In Christ, page 65, 1878.
George Storrs: “Ye shall not surely die, had its origin with the old serpent, I cannot divest
myself of the conviction that the notion that wicked men will be kept eternally alive in torments, and
never die, had its origin from the same source, as it appears to be a perfect fac-simile; and that it
was invented to inspire hard thoughts of God and keep men from turning to Him by repentance and
faith, or confidence, and acknowledging their sins against the God of love. And I solemnly believe,
this doctrine has kept more away from God, and driven them into infidelity, than any other doctrine
that was ever promulgated. I am solemnly convinced that it has done more to destroy men than all
other errors put together.” The Harvest Herald, Sermon Two, page 1.
Roger E. Dickson: “This would only lead to the fact that God is also fiendish, that is, He takes
delight in the punishment of the wicked. A billion earth years from now He would be this cosmic
sadist who continually went to some far corner of existence to make sure the lost were still
tormented for their forty or fifty years of ignorance a billion earth years in the past. In another billion
years He will check again, and then, again and again. Is this the type of god we proclaim to the
world? Is this the god of love, mercy, and justice that we read about in the Bible? This is not God,
but a god some have created after heir own vengeful nature” Life, Death and Beyond, page 163,
Star Bible Publications, Inc. church of Christ.
Clark Pinnock, “Everlasting torture is intolerable from a moral point of view because it pictures
God acting like a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for his enemies
whom he does not even allow to die. How can one love a God like that? I suppose one might be
afraid of him, but could we love and respect him? Would we want to strive to be like him in this
mercilessness?” Four Views On Hell, pages 149, 1992. Our intuition completely rejects the idea
that anyone, human or divine, who endlessly inflicted pain on another, could be called “good.”
God is not a God of terror; not a cruel and evil being this doctrine makes Him to
be. Do you think He will say to those who teach He is unjust, "Well done, good and
faithful servant...enter you into the joy of your Lord" (Matthew 15:21)?
If the reason anyone converts is because of a fear of Hell, his or her conversion is just
superficial, not real, not because he or she had a love for God, just afraid of being
tormented in Hell. A conversion because of the fear of Hell makes a hypocrite, not a
Christians. The harm that has been done by the heresy of eternal torment is beyond belief.
DILEMMAS OF THEIR OWN MAKING
The doctrine of Hell puts those who teach it in dilemmas from which they have no
way out.
(1) Dilemma number one: According to most who believe in Hell only a few will
escape it, but they say all who die before the age accountably will escape Hell and will go
to Heaven. By their own teaching, the Abortionist maybe sending more to Heaven and
saving more from Hell than preaching is. Yet, many preachers that teach "Hell" with all
its horrors bitterly oppose abortions, which by their own teaching, is saving more from
"Hell" than they are. Why? According to their own teaching, in the US alone by abortion
millions have been sent to Heaven, but most of them would have ended up being in
eternal torment if they had lived. If I believed their teaching about Hell, I would be all for
a sure way to save millions from an eternity of torment and put them safely in Heaven.
(2) Dilemma number two: Many pagans count girl babies of little or no use, and kill
many of them. For centuries, millions of girl babies in China have been killed at birth.
Today, because of the law in China of one child per family, many girl babies are being
killed at birth by parents who want a boy. According to the teaching of those who believe
in Hell there are millions of Chinese girls in Heaven that would have been tormented in
Hell if they had lived, but not many Chinese boys are in Heaven.
(3) Dilemma number three: According to them, the children killed in the Old
Testament in Gehenna would be blessed for by not having a few years of life with pain
and problems they will forever live with God in Heaven.
There are many more dilemmas like these. How many children have been sent to
Heaven by wars? How many children were send to Heaven when the two A-bombs were
dropped in world war two; do we need more wars and bombs to keep more out or Hell
and to send more to Heaven? How many children will be in Heaven because they had no
food or some sickness? By their teaching, a child that is killed or dies soon after birth is
blessed over those that live, for most of them that do not die as a child will live forever in
torment, and all those that do die when they are a child will live forever in Heaven.
According to their own teaching (if they were right), Heaven will have more in it that was
killed as a child than by all the preaching.
Annihilation is God giving people freedom to choose not to accept Christ and the life
He died to give them. Their not-accepting Christ and life means they have chosen to
accept death. God gives them their choice, and lets them pay the wages of their sin, death,
for they have chosen not to let Christ pay it for them. He is a just God, not a cruel sadistic
God who will torment forever. Some say, "God is a God of justice and sin must be paid
for, or God would not be just." Yes, but being sadistic is not justice in anyone's book, and
the very fact that He is just would not let Him cruelly and sadistically torment anyone
forever without end. The wages of our sins were paid by the death of Christ; those who
have not been baptized into His death will pay for their own sins in the second death, not
by having scalding lead poured down his or her throat for all eternity. God made all out
of nothing and has the right to send any back to nothing. Sending those back to nothing
that choose to not give Him the worship He is entitled to is His right, and there is nothing
cruel about it; they have the life He has given to them, and have chosen to live it for
themselves.
MAKES GOD HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARD
One for Him and another for us
What would be wrong for us to do, for us torment all that do not believe, is made to be
right and good for God to do “for His good pleasure” on a scale that is infinitely greater
than would be possible for all men combined to do.
Many have tried to lessen the cruelty in a number of ways. (1) Perhaps the most
common one is to make Hell be only in the mind of the lost.
Billy Graham said, "I have often wondered if Hell is a terrible burning within our hearts for God, to
fellowship with God, a fire that we can never quench."
This does not help any and maybe makes it crueler. Mental pain is as bad and
sometimes worse than physical pain. God tormenting most of mankind by making them
live in mental pain for eternity would not make Him any less cruel. (2) Some have tried
to justify this cruelty by saying the punishment must fit the crime. They are saying that if
a person commits a crime against a person he or she does not know, it is not as bad as the
same crime would be if committed against his or her mother, and the same crime
committed against God is infinitely worse, but no one could know this without a
revelation from God; where in God’s word does He say the same trespasses become
infinitely worse when it is against God? Jesus teaches that what ever we do or do not do
for mankind we do or do not do it for God (Matthew 25:40, 45), and He makes no
distinction as to who the sin was against. For centuries many of the best thinkers in
the orthodox churches have tried to find a way to justify Hell. I think the best they
have done is to say the same crime/sin committed against an infinite God demands an
infinite punishment, and God would not be just if He did not torment all sinners forever;
they have tried to make it look as if He has no way out and must torment in Hell. What
new revelation do they have that makes God be wrong when He said, "The wages of sin
is death"?
First: they are speaking where the Bible does not say anything, and they are making God
be bound by their theology; therefore, they give God no choice, making God be bound to
forever torment most of mankind all to justify their "Hell."
Second: God's law in the Old Testament had the same punishment if the sin were against
man or against Himself. To lie was the same if the lie were to a person or to God. His law
was an eye for an eye no matter whom the sin was against. Their theology makes it be
one eye if the lie were told to a person, but if the same lie where told to God it would be
an endless number of eyes.
Third: If any sin against an infinite God demands an infinite punishment of eternal
torment in Hell, all have sinned. If the payment for our sin against an infinite God is
eternal torment, Christ did not pay it for us. If the payment is death, Christ did pay it for
us.
Fourth: God made us and if He had chosen not to give anyone eternal life, to let us pass
out of exists, to return to not existing, He would still be a good and merciful God for
giving us the life we have. But, God has given us much more if we will only believe and
obey Him. He has given His only Son that we may be given life, not death. He has saved
us from the wages of sin; the death that we deserve and given us life.
Fifth: Who could love and worship a God that according to traditional doctrine would
have made our father, mother, wife or husband, our children, and many we know and
love just so He could torment them, and give them no change to not be tormented.
Throughout the Old Testament, God destroyed His enemies, Sodom and Gomorrah,
the flood, drowning in the Red Sea, etc. He did not torment them forever. The Bible does
not teach it is the character or nature of God to torment the lost.
Not only is Hell an addition to the Bible but also Hell is many times crueler than
anything the pagans ever even thought of. Because for most it is something that is far
away, and not something they can see now, I do not think they can see how cruel they are
being too most, or how cruel they are making God be. Because it is not something that is
not real to them, they are able to tell themselves "it is justice." If the Hell they teach was
real, and they could look over into it and see God tormenting most of mankind in the
terrible way they now teach that He will be doing, they would be terrified of such an evil
being as they say their God is. How can anyone not see this?
Believing in Hell and the doctrine of an immortal soul that cannot die and must
forever be tormented is as heartless as any person can be, and is loving, and is
worshiping the most cruel, sadistic, and fiendish of all Gods. If being created in the
image of God means mankind cannot die, but must forever be tormented, then
being in the image of God is a curse for most of mankind; it would have been better
for them to be as animals are. God made all things that are, if Hell does exist, it could
only have been God that thought it up and made it.
Do those who teach the doctrine of Hell really believe in Hell? The plain inference
is that they do not believe in it. They see some of their family, their friends, those they
work with, or that lives next door that they say are going to Hell at death, but do little or
nothing about it. If they really believe in Hell when they see unsaved people they know
and love dying all around them, why do they do so little to save them? They seem to care
more about what is on television than they do about the eternal torment of those they say
they love, and countess millions of others. How many are there that call them self
Christian, but have never warned even one person about this horrible place they believe
most are going to, that work with some daily for years but never say any thing to them
about the eternal torment that they say they believe their loved ones will be in?
The Saints In Heaven Are Deprived Of Qualities God Has Given To Us,
Sympathy, Pity, And Love For Others.
"The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the blessed forever and serve as a most
clear glass always before their eyes to give them a constant, bright, and most affecting view... this
display of the divine character and glory will be in favor of the redeemed, and most
entertaining, and give the highest pleasure to those who love God, and raise their
happiness to ineffable heights. Should this eternal punishment and this fire be
extinguished, it would in a great measure obscure the light of Heaven and put an end to a
great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed." Samuel Hopkins, "The works of Samuel
Hopkins, D.D." page 458.
What kind of sick man could get the highest pleasure from seeing a cruel God doing
his cruel work on billions, and even on many he knows and loves? He makes the saints in
Heaven be deprived of qualities God has given to us, sympathy, pity, love for others,
caring for others; he makes them to be cruel monsters that delight in the pain of others,
and loves to hear the groans of those they now love, and the groans of the countless
millions of the lost. He makes the saints in Heaven be taking satisfaction from seeing a
cruel God inflict eternal pain without end on those who they loved on earth, and makes
them be more cruel and blood thirsty then those in Rome who took satisfaction in seeing
lions eating Christians.
Saints On Earth Become Like The God they Worship: (See “The Crusades, bloody
Mary” in this chapter).
“I am reminded of this talk show, which showed a group of religious ‘Christians’ screaming at
people in a department store parking lot. Waving their bibles, they were shouting lines like ‘You’re
all going to hell!’ (Of course what they really meant by this was ‘You’re all gonna be tortured forever
and ever!)’ Needless to say, they looked like hideous fiends, and to think that such people actually
believe they’re obediently doing God’s will. What deception. I can’t help but be a mite suspect of
the character of those who unswervingly defend the eternal torture doctrine…I personally believe
that these people who staunchly support eternal torture – these folks who almost seem to relish the
idea of human beings consciously roasting in agony for all eternity and who become ridiculously
irate when a fellow Christian rejects such a ghastly view (even though based upon a thorough
biblical analysis) – I believe that such people have given reign to their flesh in this one area. Their
very character must be questioned; it has somehow become warped and perverted. I say this
because they would zealously do everything in their power to oppose supporters of everlasting
destruction. Some go as far as to teach that adherents of literal destruction aren’t even saved, that
they aren’t fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord. Such people have such a sinister, repulsive,
hostile air to them that I wouldn’t doubt that, if this was the Inquisition era of medieval infamy, they
would not hesitate to put to death or torture adherents of everlasting destruction” From chapter
eight of a web page: www.hell-know.net.
Jonathan Edwards: “The smoke of their burning flesh shall be as a sweet smelling savor in the
nostrils of the Almighty.” “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
What you believe about your God shows what kind of God your worship. What do
you thank about a person that gets angry and hits a person over and over and over? Do
you worship an and angry and vindictive God, and the smoke of their burning flesh shall
forever be as a sweet smelling savor in the nostrils of your God?
Summary: The real issue in the doctrine of Hell is:
(1) The nature of God
(2) And the nature of those that believe it.
Is He a God of love and mercy, or is He a cruel, sadistic, and fiendish God to
most of mankind, and made them just so He could torment them, and He gives them
no chance to not be tormented, and will not let them die? Those who believe in such
a God must defend everlasting torment, and the God who made most of mankind
knowing that He would torment them forever; according to the Calvin and
Jonathan Edwards versions of Hell, this God will delight in it, and according to
creeds, Augustine, Spurgeon and many others, those in Heaven would find delight in
seeing those in Hell being roasted in fire. Such a God and Heaven cannot be
defended. A God with such vindictiveness is a totally contradiction to the God who
would have all men come to repentance. God is not an eternal prison keeper who loves
to torments all that are in His prison. Most that believes all have an immortal soul also
believes in an eternal Hell, and in eternal punishment that has no purpose, a punishment
that is not proportionate to the sin, and in a god with a nature that the basest of men
would not defend; eternal torment in Hell requires a god that is so dreadful that it make
many reject him and his bible. When I gave up the evil God of Hell, and believed in
the true God; it brought a peace and joy I never believed possible. I now worship a
God who is worthy of being loved and worshiped.
THE FATE OF THOSE WHO ARE NOT IN CHRIST
(1) UTTERLY DESTROYED (Acts 3:23).
(2) DEATH (Romans 6:23; 6:21; 7:5; 4:17; 8:6; 1 Corinthians 3:22).
(3) MUST DIE (Romans 8:13; John 8:24; 6:50). This is not the first death, which comes
to all, to both those who are saved and those who are lost (Hebrews 9:27), but is the
SECOND DEATH (eternal nothingness) (Revelation 21:8). All will die once, but the
lost will die twice.
(4) "And when sin is accomplished, it brings forth DEATH" (James 1:15).
(5) "Condemned them to EXTINCTION" Revised Standard Version (2 Peter 2:6). To
have their very existence made to be no longer existing.
(6) They “are WORTHY OF DEATH” (Romans 1:32).
(7) PASSES AWAY (1 John 2:17).
(8) Their END is DEATH (Romans 6:21-22).
(9) Their wages for sin “IS DEATH” (Romans 6:23).
(10) They “MUST DIE” (Romans 8:13).
(11) "Their END is DESTRUCTION" (Philippians 3:19).
(12) "Whose END is TO BE BURNED" (Hebrews 6:8).
(13) "Everlasting DESTRUCTION" (2 Thessalonians 1:9).
(14) "Sudden DESTRUCTION" (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).
(15) "Swift DESTRUCTION" (2 Peter 2:1).
(16) "Will reap DESTRUCTION" (Galatians 6:8).
(17) "DESTRUCTION of ungodly man" (2 Peter 3:7).
(18) Are on the broad way leading to DESTRUCTION (Matthew 7:13-14; Philippians
3:19; 1:28; 2 Peter 3:7).
(19) God will DESTROY (1 Corinthians 3:17; 2 Peter 2:12).
(20) Will be "DESTROYED" like Sodom (Luke 17:29).
(21) BRING TO NOTHING (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
(22) Will be TURNED TO ASHES like Sodom and Gomorrah (Peter 2:6).
(23) Will "BE BURNED UP" (2 Peter 3:10).
(24) Will "PERISH" (John 3:16).
(25) Will be "SLAIN" (Luke 1914).
(26) Will be "THROWN AWAY" (Matthew 13:18).
(27) They "SHALL NOT SEE LIFE" (John 3:36; 5:40; 1 John 3:15).
(28) DO NOT HAVE THE "LIFE" Christ gives to them that obey Him (John 3:36;
5:21; 5:24; 5:29; 5:40; 6:27; Matthew 19:29; 1 John 5:12).
(29) Will LOSE LIFE (Matthew 10:39).
(30) Will have NO ACCESS TO THE TREE OF LIFE (Revelation 2:7; 22:2; 22:14).
(31) Will be BLOTTED OUT OF THE BOOK OF LIFE (Revelation 3:5).
(32) Shall PASS AWAY in "the Day of Judgment and DESTRUCTION OF
UNGODLY MEN," the "heavens shall pass away...shall be dissolved...burned up" (2
Peter 3:7-13).
(33) Will be "DEVOUR" (American Standard Version) "CONSUME" (New American
Standard Version) (Hebrews 10:27; 12:29).
(34) Fate of the wicked in the parable-always destroyed, death, not tormented.
• HEWN DOWN AND CAST INTO THE FIRE “Every tree therefore that
brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matthew
3:10).
• THEY WILL BURN UP like the useless chaff of wheat (Matthew 3:12,
Luke 3:17).
• BURNED like weeds, tares, and bad fish (Matthew 13:30-50).
• Like harmful plants will be rooted up (Matthew 15:13).
• Cut asunder like the unfaithful servant (Matthew 24:45-51).
• Cut down like useless fig tree (Luke 13:6-9).
• SLAIN (killed) like enemies (Luke 19:27).
• Cast out and KILLED like the unfaithful husbandman (Luke 20:9-17).
• Are BURNED UP like withered branches (John 15:6).
If the above language does not denote the utter and complete destruction of the
wicked, what language could God have used that would? None. Those who try to explain
away the above would try to explain away any language that could be used.
(35) Fate of the wicked in the Old Testament, the fate of people and nations in this
lifetime.
• "Behold the day comes, it burns as a furnace (see 2 Peter 3:10-12) and all the
proud and all that work wickedness shall be stubble; and the day that comes shall
burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch" (Malachi 4:1-3). Probably said of the nation of Israel. Burn up a plant
and leave it neither root nor branch, and nothing will remain of it. Nothing will
remain of the nation.
• The wicked "shall soon be cut down like the grass" (Psalm 37:2).
• "Shall be cut off...shall not be" (Psalm 37:9-10).
• "Will be as nothing" (Isaiah 41:11).
• "Become as if they has never existed" (Obadiah 16).
• "Shall perish...in smoke shall they consume away" (Psalm 37:20).
• "They shall be destroyed" (Psalm 37:38). "Altogether destroyed" New Revised
Standard Version.
• Shall "melt away" (Psalm 112:10; 68:2).
• "But the way of the wicked will perish" (Psalm 1:6).
• "But all the wicked, He will destroy" (Psalm 145:20).
• "Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book" (Exodus
32:33).
• "The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction" (Job 21:30).
• "They are like the chaff which the wind drives away" (Psalm 1:4).
• Souls shall die (Genesis 3:3; Ezekiel 18:4; 13:19).
(36) Add to this the fact that Hell is not in the Bible, not the name, or the concept;
nothing is said about God tormenting anyone after the judgment; nothing is said about the
wicked after the second death, and you have a clear picture of the fate of the wicked. God
could not have said in human language any clearer or stronger what the fate of the
wicked will be. If you think it could be said any more clearly, try it. You cannot do
it. Between the statements of the inspired writers of the Bible above, and the
uninspired teaching of men, there is an enormous discrepancy and contradiction
that cannot be explained away.
Our choice is life or death (see Deuteronomy 30:19-20). To live or die (Ezekiel
18:20), an eternal life in Hell forever being tormented by God is not one of our choices.
“But even if we are an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to
what we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I
repeat, if anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be
accursed” (Galatians 1:7-8). Is there another time Paul said something so serious that he
repeated it? If “the wages of sin is death” and someone preaches to you “the wages of sin
is eternal life in torment” that one should be accursed of preaching a gospel contrary to
that which Paul preached.
AFTER THE RESURRECTION
THE FATE OF THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST
(1) Eternal life (Romans 6:23).
(2)"Shall inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:29).
(3) After the judgment they "shall go away into eternal life" (Matthew 25:46).
(4) Will "have eternal life" (John 3:5).
(5) Christ will raise them up on the last day (John 6:40).
(6) Will be immortal after the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:51-56).
(7) Will have incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:42).
(8) Will have glory (1 Corinthians 15:43).
(9) Will be like Christ "We shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is" (1 John
3:2).
(10) Are "heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:7).
(11) Will have a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44).
(12) "And as we have borne the image of the earthly (The earthly flesh and blood body
of Adam was made to live on this earth but it "cannot inherit the kingdom of God" 1
Corinthians 15:50), we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (Shall be like the
spiritual body of Christ for life in Heaven) (1 Corinthians 15:47-56).
(13) "Will never perish" (John 10:28).
(14) Forever with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
(15) MANY MANSIONS IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE: "In my Father's house (Who
is in Heaven Matthew 5:16; 5:45; 5:48; 6:1; 6:9; 7:21; 10:32-33) are many mansions...I
go to prepare a place for you." (Where did Christ go to prepare a place for us? In the
mansions in His Father's house in Heaven. "For it was not David who ascended into
heaven, but himself says: 'the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make
your enemies a footstool for your feet.'" Acts 2:34-35) "And if I go and prepare a place
for you, (A place in my Father's house in Heaven) I come again, and will receive you
unto myself; that where I am there you may also be (With me in the place I go to
prepare for you in My Father's house in Heaven (John 14:1-3). But now I go unto him
(unto My Father who is in Heaven) that sent me" ("The word-Christ who was with the
Father in the beginning and has always been a heavenly being with God became flesh,
and dwelt among us" John 1:14) (John 16:5). He is no longer flesh, but has now gone
back to Heaven to prepare a place for the saved and will come back for them. "He who
overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and
sat down with My Father on His throne" (Revelation 3:21). Christ is now on His Fathers
throne in Heaven where He went to prepare a place for us; you cannot prepare a place in
a place that is not a place, Heaven is a real place with a real place prepared for all the
faithful.
(16) FLESH AND BLOOD CANNOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD: "And
as we have borne the image of the earthy (flesh and blood), we shall also bear the image
of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of god; (Our bodies in the image of Adam made for this earth are not suitable
for Heaven) neither do corruption inherit incorruption (Neither can our corruptible
bodies in the image of Adam inherit in the heavenly realm). Behold, I tell you a mystery:
We all shall not sleep, (Shall not die) but we shall all be changed, (All the saved that are
asleep when Christ comes, and all the saved that are alive) in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, (Raised in the heavenly image of Christ, not in the corruptible image of
Adam which they had when they died). For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
(This earthly body in the image of Adam must put on incorruption, a spiritual body in the
image of Christ. Adam never had a spiritual body before or after he sinned), and this
mortal must put on immortality (This mortal body which is the body we now have must
be changed to an immortal spiritual body which will not be the body of this earth that we
now have). But, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is
swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:50-54). In this passage Paul is telling the
Corinthians what their bodies will be after the resurrection.
• It cannot be "flesh and blood" for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God (1 Corinthians 15:50).
• It cannot be a body of "corruption" in the image of Adam for a body of corruption
cannot inherit incorruption (1 Corinthians 15:50-54).
• It cannot be the mortal body that we now have for this mortal body must put on
immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53-54).
(17) "We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall
rise first; then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the
clouds (To meet Him in the air and will have a body not of this earth) to meet the Lord in
the air: and so shall ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
(18) "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall
be. (We know what the image of Adam is for we now have it. His image was flesh and
blood both before and after he sinned, and we know that we now have his image, a body
of flesh and blood, but we do not now know what the spiritual body in the image of
Christ will be like.) We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him because we
shall see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2).
(19) WILL BE LIKE ANGELS: "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage,
but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age (The age to come. Not all will
be worthy to attain to it) and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given
in marriage; for neither can they die any more, for they are like angels, and are sons of
God, being sons of the resurrection" (Luke 20:34-36). Like the angels, the saved will
have a body that will be suitable for Heaven. Not an earthly being and will no longer
have a body in the image of Adam made for this earth, but will have a spiritual body in
the image of Christ. Angels have never had an earthly body in the image of Adam.
When we are like angels we will not have an earthly body in the image of Adam.
Adam was made of the earth and he had a flesh and blood body, and Eve was made from
his body before their sin, they never had a spiritual body or a body like the angels. To
have a body like Adam before he sinned would be to have a flesh and blood body and be
male and female. It would be nothing like the Angels.
(20) "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his
great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away,
reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:4).
(21) SEEK THE THINGS ABOVE: "If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep
seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind
on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and you life is
hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will
be revealed with Him in glory" (Colossians 2:1-4).
(22) WE NOW BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE EARTHLY (Adam) WE SHALL BEAR
THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY (Christ): "And just as we have borne the image of
the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (Not the flesh and blood image
of Adam before or after he sinned, not an earthly body, not a body of dust) (1 Corinthians
15:48).
WHEN
When will we receive the crown of righteousness? 2 Timothy 4:8.
When is the Judgment? Revelation 20:12.
When will we see Christ? When will we be like Christ? 1 John 3:2.
When will death be destroyed? 1 Corinthians 15:54-56.
When will the saved put on immortality? 1 Corinthians 15:50-53.
The when is at the resurrection, not at death.
AN ETERNITY IN HEAVEN OR ON EARTH
Some ask, "An eternity in Heaven doing what?" I ask them, "An eternity on earth
doing what?" I have not seen anywhere that they say what they think we will be doing on
earth for an eternity. Take whatever they think there will be to do on earth for eternity
and multiply it by a 100, or 10,000, or even by 100,000 and you will not have all that we
will be doing in Heaven for an eternity. All the best of this earth will be gone. There will
be no marriage; therefore, no family life (Matthew 22:30), no sea (Revelation 21:1);
therefore, nothing that has to do will the sea, no boating, no fishing, no sunset over the
water, etc. Multiply the beauty of earth by 100,000 or more and you still will not have the
beauty of Heaven.
LIFE ON THIS EARTH–versus– LIFE IN HEAVEN
1. Life on this earth: a natural body– versus– after the resurrection: a spiritual body (1 Corinthians
15:42-58).
2. Life on this earth: a mortal being– versus– after the resurrection: an immortal being.
3. Life on this earth: image of Adam– versus– after the resurrection: image of Christ.
There are three major views of the fate of the lost after death. There may be many
variations on each, not to over simplify, but I think all the variations will be on one of the
three.
1. God made most of mankind to be tormented forever.
2. God will save all mankind no matter how evil they are.
3. The wages of sin is death for those not in Christ.
o a) The eternal home for those in Christ will be on earth.
o b) The eternal home for those in Christ will be in Heaven.
When Christ came to earth He became “flesh and blood” in the image of Adam, if
Christ is to come back to and forever be a king on this earth was true He would
have to forever be “flesh and blood” in the image of Adam.
A SUMMARY OF WHERE THE DEAD ARE. Four views on what happens at
death, each one is in sharp conflict with the other three and makes them not possible. Yet,
the same preachers put the dead in three places simultaneously.
1. The spirit of all returns to God – misused to prove all have an immortal soul.
2. The dead are alive in sheol.
3. The soul of the saved go directly to Heaven at death, and the soul of the lost
directly go to Hell at death.
4. All the dead are asleep unto the resurrection.
GOD HAS SPOKE
In The Clearest Way That Is Possible With Human Language
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have
they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten...for there is no work, nor
device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you go" (Ecclesiastes 9:5-10). "His
breath goes forth, he returns to the earth: in that very day his thoughts perish" (Psalm
146:4). "So man lies down and rises not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not
awake, nor be roused out of their sleep" (Job 14:12). If you read God's word and you still
believe a person now has an immortal soul; and is not subject to death, there is no human
language God could use to tell you otherwise. You have believed men and Satan, and will
not hear God.
There is nothing hard to understand about the nature of a person, or the fate of the
wicked. It takes much help from theology to not understand the clear teaching of the
Bible. Much help to make many believe Satan's lie over God's word. Much help for
anyone to not be able to see the simple truth when he or she reads the Bible.
Could God have given his revelation about the fate of mankind after death in a
way that all could understand it? The answer is yes; God could and did choose
words, parables, symbols, and metaphors that clearly teach the death of, not the
eternal torment of the lost. The unsaved die, perish, are destroyed, and are lost. The
obedient are saved from death, and given life and immortality at the judgment. God
could not have said it any clearer. If you think he could have, try to say it any
clearer. The words and expressions are used that put the truth beyond all possibility
of question. Eternal life with torment would not be death.
Be honest with yourself, with God, and go to His word with honesty, love, and
reverence. Can pagan teachings, which are promoted in the name of Christ, result in
knowledge of the truth that can save?
Do you want to die? When the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death,” it literally
means what it says, “The wages of sin is death” not eternal life in torment. Do you
want to face God's wrath at the judgment and be found not fit to live? Do you want to
know that the second death will be an eternal end of you? If not, then: Hear and believe
(Romans 1:16; Hebrews 11:6). Repent (Luke 13:5). Die to sin, and through baptism be
buried and raised to walk in newness of life with Christ (Romans 6:1-23; Mark 16:16;
Acts 2:38 John 3:5). "For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death
(through baptism), we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:5).
"God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has the life;
he that has not the Son of God has not the life" (1 John 5:11-12). Live faithfully unto
death, and receive the crown of life and immortality at the resurrection (Revelation 2:10;
1 Corinthians 15:52-55; John 5:21). "But they that are accounted worthy to attain to that
world (age), and the resurrection from the dead...neither can they die any more: for
they...are sons of God" (Luke 20:35). "It was necessary that the word of God should first
be spoken to you. Seeing you thrust it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of
eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13:45-48). The question is not where will
you spend your eternity, but will you have an eternity.
"For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we wait for a Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ; who WILL transform the body of our humble state into conformity with
the body of His glory" (Philippians 3:20-21). "To him that overcomes, to him will I give
to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7). The
resurrection of the dead totally destroys the doctrine of an immortal soul from
birth. If anyone had a soul that was alive and in Heaven, it could not be resurrected
from the dead, it would have no need of the resurrection.
A SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE EVILS
OF THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL TORMENT
• If the only part of man that will be in Heaven or Hell is the soul and it cannot die,
then the wages of sin cannot be death; the wages of sin is changed to eternal life
in torment.
• Unconditional immortality makes God more cruel and sadistic then any heathen
god. It teaches God made man knowing most would not and could not be saved,
knowing He was going to give most to Satan to do with as he wished, or knowing
that He himself was going to forever torment them.
• Makes existence be a curse. Most will live a few years as a frail being with many
pains, etc. then die to forever be in more torment then anyone in this lifetime has
ever had. The immortal soul doctrine dooms more than nine-tenths of the human
race to endless torment.
• Unconditional immortality inflicts a useless, fiendish suffering that will benefit no
one, not God who is doing the tormenting, not the ones who He is tormenting, not
those in Heaven who will be seeing their loved one tormented by God, no one will
be benefited by endless misery.
• Unconditional immortality leads to unbelief. More atheists and hypocrites have
been made by the teaching of the horrors of Hell then any other teaching. It has
turned many millions away from such an unjust God.
• Unconditional immortality is heathen in its origin. It was brought into the church
by the so called “church fathers” from Pagan philosophers as Socrates.
• The fruits of unconditional immortality. John Calvin burned Servetus to death
over a slow fire, then he wrote a book, “A Faithful Account Of The Errors Of
Servetus, In Which It Is Proved That Heretics Ought To Be Restrained By The
Sword;” in Calvin’s argument with the Anabaptists he uses such words as
ignorant babbles, evil, nefarious herd, dregs, insanity, etc. Bloody Mary and many
others killed millions just because they did not believe this bloody teaching of
unconditional immortality.
A BRIEF SUMMARY
OF SOME OF THE MAIN POINTS OF THIS BOOK
All four times that soul (nehphesh) is used in Genesis one it is used referring to
animals not to a person Strong’s Hebrew word #5315—“a breathing creature, i.e.
animal.” Animals were souls, living beings, before any man existed.
In ten of the first thirteen times soul (nehphesh) is used it is used referring to animals.
In Genesis 9:4-16 the same word is used for both man and animals seven times in the
same passage.
Up to Genesis 27:4 for hundreds of years nehphesh is translated soul:
• Only four times out of twenty-two in the King James Version.
• Only one time out of twenty-two in the New King James Version.
• None in The New International Version and most others translations.
The “soul” and “eating of blood.” Is the immortal "soul" (nehphesh) in the blood?
Animals are "souls" nehphesh–living creature. Animals are souls–a living being, not
animals have souls–an immaterial, invisible, no substance, deathless something.
If a soul can die it cannot be immortal. Can whatever is intended by the Hebrew
word "nehphesh" die? In over 320 (over one third) of the about 870 times that soul
(nehphesh) is used:
• The soul is already dead.
• The soul can die, or can be killed.
• The soul can be sought to be killed.
• The soul can be affected.
• The soul can be smote.
• The soul can be cut off.
• The soul can be murdered.
• The soul can be delivered from death.
• The soul can be buried.
• The soul (person-nehphesh) can be hungry.
• Have an appetite, be thirsty, and eat meat.
In most of these passages the translators of the King James and other translations have
hidden from the readers that the very thing they believe to be immortal and cannot die
does die by translating "nehphesh" into "life," "person" and many other words.
Nehphesh (soul) is translated:
1. Life about 122 times.
2. Person about 26 times.
3. Mind about 15 times.
4. Heart about 15 times.
5. Personal pronouns 44 + times (yourselves, themselves, her, me, he, his, himself).
6. All others, about 200 times (man, creature, living being, own, any, living thing, lives, the dead,
dead body, kills, slays, slay him, mortally, discontented, ghost, breath, will, appetite, hearty
desire, desire, pleasure, lust, deadly, fish).
All 870 times have one thing in common, they are all associated with the activity of a living being,
including dying of both of person(s) and animal(s), and it never implies anything about life after the
death of the living being, they are all speaking of living beings that will die, not of an immortal
deathless something in a living being.
Bible words must be changed to mean the exact reverse of their real meaning.
God must be made to say one thing when He intended the exact opposite of what He said.
• Death must be changed to life— an endless life of being tormented by God.
• Destruction must be changed to indestructible—destruction is made to mean kept
alive in torment.
• End must be changed to endless.
• Kill must be changed to never able to be killed—never able to end life.
• Sleep must be changed to always being awake in Heaven of Hell.
• Consumed must be changed to never able to be consumed.
• Perish must be changed to imperishable—always perishing for all eternality but
never perished.
• Burned up must be changed to always burning, but never burned up.
• Destroy must be changed to indestructible.
Going to Heaven at the moment of death makes a person judgment be at death, not at
the second coming of Christ, and makes the resurrection impossible. Who do you believe,
Christ or the Platonic philosophy of the survival of the soul?
When unconditional immortality says the soul is the real person and can never die,
that the soul of Christ, which was the real Christ, was alive before the resurrection on the
third day, that only the body of flesh dies, it makes the real Christ to have never died,
only a body of flesh died; therefore, the real Christ never died for us, and we are still in
our sins. An immortal undying soul makes death, the wages of sin, and the resurrection
impossible. Who do you believe, God or Satan?
"But now has Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But, each in his own order: Christ
the first fruits; then they that are Christ's at his coming." Could Paul have been any
more specific? ONLY THROUGH THE RESURRECTION AT THE SECOND
COMING OF CHRIST WILL ANYONE HAVE LIFE AFTER DEATH.

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"The Indictment Of Eternal Torment--The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine"